My intentions were good, says David Hicks

Leesha McKenny and Peter Martin

Former Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks showed a well-known photo of himself to a Sydney Writers Festival crowd yesterday.

But the infamous shot of the South Australian posing in military fatigues with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher resting on his shoulder was taken "years before the conflict in Afghanistan started and it's nothing but a silly boy's trophy shot," Mr Hicks said.

David Hicks with his father, Terry, at his book signing at the Sydney Writers Festival. Photo: Janie Barrett

"[Afghanistan] is such a small part of my story and yet you get the impression from the media that it was the only part of the story."

Donna Mulhearn, who went to Iraq before the war began to act as a human shield, and who joined Mr Hicks on stage to discuss his book, Guantanamo: My Journey – his first public appearance since its October 2010 release – said the cropped shot was an example of "framing".

"And this is a diabolical weapon of the media," she said. "That's all you saw of David Hicks."

Mr Hicks told the sold-out Sydney Theatre event he did not know how to pronounce "mosque" when he first walked into one in northern Adelaide, and had never heard of al-Qaeda "until I heard it from the lips of an interrogator in Guantanamo Bay years later".

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Mr Hicks, who spent more than five years in detention in Guantanamo Bay, was convicted by a US military commission of providing material support for terrorism, but has faced no charges in Australia.

The Director of Public Prosecutions will soon decide whether to try to seize the proceeds from his book.

"I went to Afghanistan to receive basic military training. I have no problem saying that because that's what happened," he said.

"There weren't al-Qaeda training camps where I was. It's all about Kashmir, my story. It's not about Afghanistan."

But the Military Commissions Act of 2006, "which is the one that I was forced to plead guilty under", has since been scrapped by the US President, Barack Obama, Mr Hicks told the audience.

"Because of that my US lawyers say that my conviction is now null and void," he said.

Mr Hicks, thanked the Australian public – and his father Terry Hicks, who was in the audience – for their support.

"I went overseas with the intention to help people, to do something. Some people may think it's a bit weird, a bit strange, impulsive, naive – OK. But my intentions were good. And unfortunately I ended up being detained and tortured and accused of being a terrorist," he said.

A long queue formed as Mr Hicks signed copies of his book after the talk, under the gaze of the ABC's Australian Story cameras, but he refused to answer any questions from the media.